In mature markets, smartphones are now saturated with Apps and getting user to download new Apps has become increasingly difficult. Users have become more critical of Apps that do not meet perfectly their expectations and tend to uninstall more Apps, more quickly.

For years, publishers’ focus was on the distribution and promotions of their apps, in other words, how to get users to see your app and download it. Now that most functional needs are now covered by thousands of Apps (photos, emails, message, contacts, social network), the biggest efforts should be put on increasing users loyalty.

Before your start developing a new App, you should examine more closely the reasons why users will want to keep your App on their device.

A successful App should be innovative…

To identity success factors, Open Group and EBG conducted a survey with 1000 App users and 637 App professionals.

According to Stephane Hugon, founder of Eranos and PhD in sociology, “what is a good App? It is an App whose value is quickly perceived by users and that requires a minimum amount of training to be used correctly”.

So what exactly disqualifies an App from the “Successful App” category?

For users, by far, the first reason is slow performance (73.7%), followed by an intrusiveness (65.8%) and then, logically, a lack of interest (61%).

Whereas for publishers, who develop Apps themselves or use mobile app development companies, slowness is not perceived as a decisive criteria. Only 31.7% of professionals believe slow performance could lead their users to uninstall their apps. From there, we understand that from a user point-of-view, the way content is served to them is just as important as what content is served.

Users and professionals disagree about what makes a “bad” mobile app but maybe can they agreed on what makes a “good” app. (ie. A successful app).

For users, attributes of a good app are innovation, unique functionalities and consistency with the brand perceived image.

Professionals agree on these 3 criteria, but in a different order. To them, offering a unique functionality comes first, followed by a seamless integration in the company branding and innovation.

Other factors such as design (UX) and usability are also underestimated by professionals.

Indeed, an attractive design and an ease of use are respectively mentioned as key factors by 33% and 25% of users. Professionals, on the other hand, deems these aspects much less essential (16% and 4%).

Professionals can learn a few things from these results:

Put more effort into the pre-development phase. Ie. The brainstorming, concept creation phase. What problem does it solve? How easy is it for user to understand how the app works? Not only should they motivate users to install an app but also to keep it on their device.

Optimize the performance of the app. Ie. Speed, battery consumption, etc. If an app drains the battery or slows down the device, users will end up uninstalling it.

Submit your design to potential users of the app before you start developing. A/B testing or usability panels are very common in the web development world. Many tools are available to test a design in the early phases of conception or development but they are still largely (wrongfully) ignored in the mobile app development world.

More than ever, professionals need to listen to what their users are saying. Almost 10 years after the first mobile apps appeared, what is important to users is still largely misunderstood by App publishers. Unfortunately, professionals spend most of the budget on the development/coding part and underestimate the conception phase. Unlike many small start-ups which use the feedback of the market to make their app evolve before they start promoting it, larger brands cannot afford playing this live trial/error strategy. By focusing on the keys factors mentioned in this study, professionals will largely increase their chance to enter the “successful app” category and keep their apps remained installed on their customers’ devices.

As retailers prepare for the back-to-school shopping season on mobile, what buyers are searching for from an in-store shopping experience may not be precisely what they get.

According to a Rubicon Project survey comprising 1,500 interviews of parents, the back-to-school shopping season tends to start earlier every year. This year, many parents started shopping right at the beginning of Summer break.

Most of the parents (60%) will do some shopping from a smartphone, of which (73%) are first time mobile shoppers.

The majority (68%) of parents are loaded with retailer’s mobile apps, with Amazon being, once again, at the top:

47% – Amazon

33% – Walmart

26% – Target

19% – Ebay

15% – Kohls

12% – Macy’s

11% JCPenney

67% of the respondents are using the retailer’s mobile app while shopping in the store but many of them are facing technological difficulties according to a recent study by RichReleva.

That’s exactly where location targeted message come in.

While in a store, fewer than 40% of the shoppers consider the custom messages they receive from the store as being an incentive to buy. On the other end, messages about viewed product, sent after shoppers leave the store are considered positively by 79% of the respondents.

Location-based marketing message isn’t new and that precisely why retailer should focus on the quality of their messages to avoid degrading the shopping experience.

Unfortunately, there is no global solution as to when I the right time and what is the right content. It largely depends on the type of products, the type of store, the demographics of the audience, the time of the day…

There are also many reasons why a customer would get close to a store without intending to shop (going to work, shopping for another type of product). In this case, messages can become counter productive as customers perceive the sender as an annoyance.

The organization just launched a new mobile location platform that provide more efficient marketing tools to retailer looking to reach their customer during the in-store shopping experience.

“Shopping situations are unique by area,” Hayes said. “We understand that if you’re visiting several car dealer in a short in the same week, you may be shopping for a car and we are able to push the right message.” The digital tag area then automatically adjusts for time of day and location-specific behavior, which is different for each location.

Those shopping areas are heavily documented with years of accumulated behavioral information, Hayes said, implying that if customers originate from three miles away, promotions won’t be served four miles away.

And it’s working.

For back-to-school shopping, half (47%) of the parents have taped on an Ad served through a mobile App in the preceding week, as indicated by the Rubicon Project study.

You probably heard the terms E-magazine, E-catalog, Digital catalog, interactive publications… Those terms all refer to the same industry called Digital publishing or Web publishing (even tho the later is more rarely used).

The concept

Those 2 terms describe the same concept : making a content available on the internet. It could be a website, a PDF file available through a link, a slideshare presentation and the like It could as be a type of web content that is generally found in a printed form.

The common usage of Digital publishing is clearly intended to refer to a flyer, magazine, brochure, leaflet, report, catalog that is available through a URL. (Generally, with the ability to flip or swipe pages.)

For simplification purposes, when referring to these documents, we will use the wording “Digital publications” for the rest of this post.

Compatibility on mobile devices used to be an additional option but its now a standard feature since as much as 20% of users are browsing digital publications through a mobile device (source: Prestimedia – Google analytics).

HTML5 is the most commonly used format used to reach this category of viewers. It should be noted that more and more digital publications primarily designed for desktop are being created directly in HTML5. Not only does ensure to ensure a compatibility across all platforms but it also reduce the costs and resources.

Digital publications can be created directly by the publisher with a SAAS (software as a service)/ Do-it-yourself software or by a specialized digital publishing company, like Prestimedia.

Software solutions can be slit between pay-per-use price model and time-limited licensing. They generally let the user create as many publications or convert as many pages during a set time.

Service providers generally offer a mix of sub-cost (pages, user interface, analytics…) or a cost per project (less common).

“Ok, I am interested, I want to know more. How can I choose the right solution ?”

Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I have any experience creating digital publication ?

Do I have the skills required to execute all the tasks required ?

Do I have the time to perform all these tasks ?

Am I sure of the way I should promote my digital publication ?

Optionally, you may even have to ask yourselves “Do I want to leave my content on a third party server”.

If you answered “YES” to all these questions, you can definitely consider exploring Digital publication Software. Remember, in some cases, it can take time to understand and master the tools. However, if you have the resources and skills available, the outcome can be satisfying in the long run.

If you answered “NO” to any these questions, you definitely want to consider using a full service digital publication company.

A professional vendor will be able to execute the work in a much faster and precise way while providing most valuable guidance (what type of content, what format, what features, how can I promote it, etc.) and offer a custom pricing based on what you actually need.